Marcellus shale puts Pennsylvania in top tier of states that export energy

TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.

Development of the Marcellus shale has turned Pennsylvania from a net importer to a net exporter of natural gas and has made the state one of the top five energy exporters in the country, the Energy Information Administration said Monday.

Pennsylvania’s natural gas production went from 573 billion cubic feet in 2010 to 5,264 billion cubic feet in 2016. The boom has led to pipelines being reconfigured to send gas out of the state instead of bringing it in.

The state remains one of the largest producers of coal. About 20 percent of its coal is exported to foreign markets.

Wyoming and Texas are larger energy exporters than the third-place Keystone State, and West Virginia and North Dakota round out the top five.

Overall, 12 states produce more primary energy than they consume, while the remaining 38 and the District of Columbia are net recipients of energy from outside their boundaries.

Brian Bowling is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-850-1218, bbowling@tribweb.com or via Twitter @TribBrian.

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.